I added decoding support to MTR for MPLS extensions to ICMP, today.  Grab the patch here and read info here.  It's based on some of the code in the NANOG traceroute patches and draft-ietf-mpls-icmp-02.  It looks something like this with the curses interface (and only IPv4):

 Host                                                Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. br0.proton.prolixium.net                          0.0%    25   16.4   1.6   0.8  16.4   3.1
 2. ax0.scimitar.prolixium.net                        0.0%    24    2.3   2.1   1.5   5.7   0.8
 3. 73.16.200.1                                       0.0%    24    8.9   9.2   6.9  11.5   1.2
 4. GE-2-38-ur01.proctorrd.fl.westfl.comcast.net      0.0%    24    7.6   9.5   7.6  13.6   1.5
 5. te-8-1-ur01.palmerranch.fl.westfl.comcast.net     0.0%    24    8.5  10.2   8.1  15.9   1.8
 6. te-9-1-ar01.venice.fl.westfl.comcast.net          0.0%    24    8.1  10.3   8.0  20.6   2.6
 7. 12.124.85.25                                      0.0%    24   12.6  14.5  12.0  20.6   2.3
 8. tbr2.ormfl.ip.att.net [MPLS: Label 27758 Exp 0]   0.0%    24   29.0  26.1  23.8  29.8   1.7
 9. cr2.ormfl.ip.att.net [MPLS: Label 16735 Exp 0]    0.0%    24   24.5  26.1  23.7  41.8   4.1
10. cr1.attga.ip.att.net [MPLS: Label 16707 Exp 0]    0.0%    24   28.2  25.4  23.8  28.2   1.3
11. tbr1.attga.ip.att.net [MPLS: Label 27974 Exp 0]   0.0%    24   24.1  26.4  23.7  31.6   2.1
12. ggr4.attga.ip.att.net                             0.0%    24   24.2  45.4  22.4 225.8  57.4
13. 192.205.35.90                                     0.0%    24   30.3  29.9  28.4  34.3   1.4
14. nlayer.te1-1.ar2.DCA3.gblx.net                    0.0%    24   43.3  44.7  39.5  79.1   9.4
15. tge4-3.ar1.iad1.us.nlayer.net                     0.0%    24   41.2  48.9  39.9 102.5  16.9
16. g0-1.aggr2.iad1.us.nlayer.net                     0.0%    24   40.0  41.8  39.9  47.6   1.6
17. route-server.nlayer.net                           0.0%    24   57.0  41.7  39.3  57.0   3.5

It's based on MTR 0.72 (my mistake).  I'll add one for 0.73 soon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comparison_of_file_systems&oldid=209063556#Features

Note that this only makes sense if you've been following the news.

For some reason, lately I've acquired an odd interest in old Unix systems.  I've already got a Sun Ultra 10 and ancient HP 9000 running an equally ancient version of HP-UX.  I had to have more, right?  So, I picked up an SGI O2 via eBay a few weeks ago, and just recently got my hands on the latest (last) version of IRIX, 6.5.30.

It's been named diatomic, for obvious reasons.  I still haven't been able to get sshd to listen on any of the IPv6 addresses on the system, but I'll get there eventually.  Quake2 works, at least :)

Tips

> Don't use GNU binutils on IRIX, it won't work.  You'll get various errors from as and ld when trying to compile anything with either the SGI Freeware or Nekoware gcc packages.  You need to install the compiler_dev packages from the Development Foundation that comes in the IRIX media kit.

> If you get the following message when trying to open a disc with inst(1M):

Inst> /CDROM/dist
ERROR: This software distribution is not meant to install on 
the version of IRIX currently running on this machine.  Sorry.

This means you're in the wrong directory.  Try opening /CDROM/dist/dist6.5 or something else.

> Xsgi runs in 8-bit mode by default.  Change it to 24-bit mode by following instructions here or just add "-class TrueColor -depth 24" to /var/X11/xdm/Xservers.

> You can enable the mouse wheel by following instructions here.

> IPv6 support on IRIX is disabled by default.  To enable it, run "systune ip6_enable 1" and reboot.  You may need some ipv6 packages, so watch the console when your system is booting up, it'll display a notification message.  Stateless autoconfiguration is enabled by default.

> If you hose up your boot sector and partitions, can't boot anything, and your O2 whines about not being able to find sash, run sash from the IRIX install CD (disc 1) by doing the following:

boot -f dksc(X,Y,8)sashARCS
boot -f dksc(X,Y,7)stand/fx.ARCS --x

Replace X and Y with your SCSI CDROM location.  More information here.  You can then repartition and relabel your disk, and then install IRIX (or whatever).

(recap) I was lucky enough to be sent to SANS 2008, at the Disney Dolphin in Orlando, FL, last week.  It was a fun trip, except for some sunburn and crappy Internet access.  Random photos were taken, and I picked up some goodies at Downtown Disney in my spare time.

I took the SANS Security 502, Perimeter Protection In-Depth, class, which went over everything from NIDS to ARP poisioning.  The instructor, Chris Brenton, has one scary understanding of network security.

There were a few lectures at night, four of which I attended.  Hal Pomeranz gave a talk on Unix command-line Kung Fu, and Ed Skoudis gave talks on What Not to Do During a Breach Investigation and Netcat without Netcat.  The Netcat lecture was pretty wild, especially when he showed us how to hide cmd.exe access on a Windows box via two files accessible via NetBIOS.  I also attended a GIAC brief, since I plan on taking at least one of their examinations.

Strangely enough, I had awful Internet access throughout my whole stay in Orlando.  The hotel I stayed at (not the Dolphin, I missed the cutoff date for the SANS discount rate) had awful Wi-Fi coverage, so much that I couldn't stay associated to the APs for more than 30-40 seconds.  There was a Best Western that provided complementary access that I had line-of-sight to from my 17th floor room.  Unfortunately, the *BSD box that was providing NAT functionality got terribly laggy (3-4 sec RTT) after 21:00, every night.  I resorted to Internet access via EDGE.  Internet access at the Dolphin hotel was equally bad - with 20-30% PL at all times.  Good thing I didn't have to do any work :)

In a rather interesting blow to the XORP project, Vyatta has switched its routing engine to Quagga.

Although I really liked the JUNOS-like CLI, XORP always disappointed me with its tendency to screw up its own configuration file.  Hopefully we'll start seeing some neat contributions (*cough* ldpd, rsvpd *cough*) to the Quagga project in the future!

I'm not sure why, but I have a strange obsession with uptime.  My workstation is up to 217 days, now.  Compare to other systems:

dax 7:19PM  up 105 days,  1:53, 8 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.03, 0.00
nat 19:19:14 up 19 days,  8:08,  0 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.05
nonce 19:19:15 up 62 days,  7:51,  2 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.09, 0.12
starfire 19:19:15 up 106 days, 19:43,  0 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.07, 0.15
diatomic 4:05pm  up 13 days, 23:32,  2 users,  load average: 0.77, 0.68, 0.61
tacolinux 19:19:16 up 183 days, 23:50,  2 users,  load average: 0.78, 0.97, 0.95
vega 19:19:16 up 174 days, 21:32,  1 user,  load average: 0.37, 0.26, 0.20
eclipse 19:19:16 up 37 days,  1:26, 13 users,  load average: 0.06, 0.03, 0.00
bogon 19:19:17 up 18 days, 22:29,  0 users,  load average: 0.20, 0.33, 0.27
scimitar 19:19:18 up 36 days,  1:31,  0 users,  load average: 0.08, 0.04, 0.00

And I just lost the uptime on my Windows XP VM by accidently deleting the vmdk files…

New patch for MTR, grab it here.  In summary:

• UDP sequence numbers now stored in the UDP destination port instead of IP ID
• IPv6 support fixed
• UDP checksums now generated for IPv4/IPv6 datagrams
• Fixed source address display bug

Endian issues suck.  But gdb(1) and me are pals, now!

Update: Ha!  Looks like I'm not the only one who's been working on such a patch.  Check out Debian bug #472509.

It looks like libmagick10, a dependency of the imagemagick package, is now linked against libdjvulibre21, which pulls in a ton of packages not appropriate for a server:

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  app-install-data dbus dbus-x11 djview4 djvulibre-plugin eject esound-clients
  gconf2 gconf2-common gksu gnome-keyring gnome-mount hal hal-info
  iceape-browser iceape-gnome-support libaudio2 libaudiofile0 libavahi-client3
  libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libavahi-glib1 libbonobo2-0
  libbonobo2-common libbonoboui2-0 libbonoboui2-common libcairo-perl
  libdbus-1-3 libdbus-glib-1-2 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdirectfb-extra
  libdjvulibre21 libeel2-2.20 libeel2-data libenchant1c2a libesd0
  libgail-common libgail18 libgconf2-4 libgksu2-0 libglade2-0 libglib-perl
  libgnome-keyring0 libgnome-menu2 libgnome2-0 libgnome2-canvas-perl
  libgnome2-common libgnome2-perl libgnome2-vfs-perl libgnomecanvas2-0
  libgnomeui-0 libgnomeui-common libgnomevfs2-0 libgnomevfs2-common
  libgnomevfs2-extra libgtk2-perl libgtop2-7 libgtop2-common libhal-storage1
  libhal1 libhunspell-1.1-0 libidl0 libilmbase6 libmng1 libmysqlclient15off
  libnautilus-extension1 libnotify1 libnspr4-0d libnss3-1d libopenexr6
  liborbit2 libpam-gnome-keyring libqt4-core libqt4-gui libqt4-qt3support
  libqt4-sql libscrollkeeper0 libsexy2 libsmbclient libsmbios-bin libsmbios1
  libsmbiosxml1 libsplashy1 libsqlite0 libstartup-notification0 libts-0.0-0
  libvte-common libvte9 libwnck-common libwnck22 libx86-1 libxres1
  mozilla-browser mysql-common notification-daemon pm-utils powermgmt-base
  qt4-qtconfig radeontool scrollkeeper synaptic uswsusp vbetool
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libmagick10
1 upgraded, 103 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 54.4MB of archives.
After this operation, 154MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

Seriously, this should have been thought through a little better.  Lots of folks use ImageMagick as a backend for photo gallery and other scripts.  Servers don't need any gnome-* crap, eject, dbus, or any of the other desktop trash.

I'm waiting for a libmagick10-nodjvu package, or similar.  So yeah, Debian testing users, beware.

Update: Just add "APT::Install-Recommends "false";" to /etc/apt/apt.conf, and it won't install recommends.